Are you happy in your job? Or do you spend your days dreaming of a life-changing lottery win?

Professor Stephen Teo from Edith Cowan University spends his days studying the secrets to happiness in the workplace.

He said finding happiness at work is incredibly important — both for workers and the organisations they serve.

"If we are happy at work, our productivity is going to up," Professor Teo said.

"And if productivity goes up, organisational profit is going to up."

Professor Teo said from an occupational health and safety point of view, if employees are not happy at work, the consequence is usually that they are not engaged — which can lead to injuries and accidents.

Organisations where people are unhappy also typically have a high employee turnover rate, and that translates into high recruitment and training costs, Professor Teo said.

Adding to the woes of such employers — employees who are unhappy, but feel unable to leave their job, will take more sick leave.

"So there are quite a lot of reasons why employers should care [about happiness]," Professor Teo said

Bad bosses the biggest source of misery

In workplaces where people are unhappy, Professor Teo said it's usually because of poor leadership and unsupportive colleagues.

"If you have a boss who is very demanding, abusive, not very understanding … your stress level [is] going to increase as a result of that," Professor Teo said.

"If your colleagues around you are very supportive [and] you have a very good work environment, where your senior managers are very ethical — this is where your stress level goes down and you are more committed and engaged at work."

A happy workplace is also more likely to keep its staff, even if they are able to earn more money elsewhere, Professor Teo said.

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